The Ice Storm
by Mewgia Mirrorcoat
Summary: Games of Spit! Radioactive chicken! Video games! Charades! Izzy is OOC! What could possibly be the cause of all this madness? An ice storm trapping everyone in different places, of course! (Chapter 2 up)
1. Chapter 1: And So It Begins

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon. I do own the story idea though.

A/N: This story containes hints of Kenyako and Takari, and it's also somewhat Sorato. I'm really a Taiora fan, but as of the "Digi Christmas" episode and the end of the series...grumble grumble... Anyway, there will later be a discussion based off of that...

I decided to stick in a few random things though - Matt has perfect pitch (in which one can correctly identify the pitch of any given note...very cool, and sometimes very annoying if you have it, as will be shown later...), everyone's sending obnoxiously long emails with their D-terminals, and everyone has a D-terminal. When people send email, it shows up with their full Japanese name. And the scene with TK and the stove incident will eventually show up in the DigiAnecdote collection (you'll see what I mean if you read this). Enjoy! And don't become a popscicle in the process!

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**__**

**_Chapter 1 – So It Begins_**

_In which Odaiba has its worst (and probably only) ice storm and blizzard, causing many problems for the Digidestined._

Kari sighed as she watched her breath mist on the cold window. It was a nice, cold January day, and a Sunday too, for that matter, even if the city was going through a time of exceptionally cold weather. She dazedly drew a small picture of her crest on the window, then wiped it away. For a moment, she waited as the window began to fog up again, and idly, drew a picture of the crest of Hope. She smiled, watching the clock, where it read 1:23 PM, idly picking up a CD in her left hand twirling it.

There was a knock on her bedroom door. Kari immediately hopped up from her seat by the window, wiping away the small picture she'd drawn on it. "Come in."

Tai popped his head into the room, dressed for the cold weather outside. "Hey Kari, before she left Mom told me to go down to the grocery store, is there anything you want for when TK gets here?"

Kari thought for a moment. "How about some popcorn and a deck of cards for Gatomon?" She motioned towards the napping digimon on her bed.

Tai grinned, taking a little pad out his pocket and jotting it down. "At your service," he said in his best waiter voice.

Kari rolled her eyes. "I hope my favorite server is being nice and responsible."

"But of course mademoiselle!" Tai cried out in mock astonishment. A moment later, he laughed, and stuck the pad back in his pocket. "Kay, I'll be back in half an hour, probably with Matt or something, since he's always bored on Sunday afternoons..."

"All right. Be careful, it's really cold out. See you later Tai."

"Later."

With that, Tai closed the door again.

Kari sighed, staring out the window, every now and then glancing at Gatomon. Her partner had fallen into a state of perpetual tiredness after the final battle with Malomyotismon, and had only made her state worse by staying up late every night since then. Kari worried somewhat for Gatomon, mostly because the other digimon had all recovered easily after the battle. So she had had Gatomon sleep the entire day today.

Kari finally moved away from the window, and sat on her bed next to her sleeping partner. As long as Gatomon was okay, Kari would stay happy.

The doorbell rang. Grinning, Kari jumped up off the bed, much more full of energy than her lethargic partner. She opened her door, ran out into the hall, and opened the door, feeling a whoosh of cold air rush into the apartment.

TK stood there shivering in a thick blue jacket, with his breath visible and his face practically frozen into a grin. Like always, he wore his trademark hat, which had some smudges of dirt on it, and seemed to look a little soggy. His blond hair had bits of frost in it. "H-Hi K-K-Ka-r-ri..." He spoke, his teeth chattering.

Kari's eyes widened in concern and she grabbed the freezing boy and quickly ushered him into the apartment, closing the door before too much cold air could stream in. She led him to the couch, forced him to sit down, grabbed a spare blanket and threw it over him.

TK blinked. "Th-thanks Kar," he gladly took the blanket, but didn't wrap it around himself.

Kari noticed this as she grabbed a packet of hot cocoa from a box. "TK, wrap that around. Did you walk all the way here?"

"Yeah..."

Kari sighed as she made the hot cocoa. "Was something wrong with the bus or something then? You look like you got hypothermia or something."

TK shrugged, still too cold to really answer. He still didn't put the blanket on.

"TK, put the blanket on."

TK sighed, still shivering somewhat, though he was starting to adapt to the warmth of the apartment. "Okay, just wait...it's Patamon, I had to keep him from freezing somehow." He carefully took Patamon out from underneath his jacket. "Man Kari, you're sounding like my mom."

"Maybe I'll be forced to turn into your mom if you don't put that blanket on..."

Patamon was shivering too, but not as much as his human partner. The digimon turned and gave Kari a strange look as TK finally wrapped himself and Patamon in the blanket. "But that's not right Kari, because then you would have been married to Mr. Ishida and you'd be a newspaper reporter...and everything would be really messed up."

Kari and TK both blinked, and began laughing. "That would be messed up," TK commented, who had warmed up enough that his teeth had stopped chattering, though he still shivered.

Grinning, Kari brought the hot cocoa over to TK, who took it gladly. They sat in silence, TK sipping the cocoa, and Patamon still shivering slightly every now and then.

Finally, Patamon hopped out from under the blanket, flapping his wings and flying up above the two humans. TK and Kari looked up at the digimon, who seemed to be acting normally again. Patamon grinned, and sat on TK's hat, before wincing slightly and flying up into the air again. "TK, you should get a hair dryer. I think it'll help," Patamon said, giving some advice.

Kari quietly reached over and patted TK on the head, where he scrunched himself up and gave her an innocent look, turning slightly red. His hair felt very damp and cold, and the moisture had soaked through into his hat. The frost she'd seen earlier had melted, but it still left him looking damp and miserable. She looked at him, taking her hand away. "What happened?"

TK blushed slightly more than earlier, probably from the mom look Kari was giving him. "Umm...I showered, didn't dry my hair, and walked here."

Kari sighed, though her eyebrows raised in concern. "And your hair froze."

TK grinned slightly.

Kari shook her head. "You're going to become Tai or someone like him someday."

TK raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're not my mom?"

"As likely it is that you're Mr. Fujiyama."

TK laughed, and Kari began to laugh with him as they sat together on the couch. Patamon glanced at them smiling, and stated simply, "I'm going to go see Gatomon, but you two stay warm, okay?"

Kari blushed while TK nodded, wrapping the blanket around himself tighter. Patamon flipped in the air, then flew away from the two down the hall.

The two sighed, as they sat in silence for a minute while TK finished his hot cocoa. It was still warm inside, though from a glance outside one could almost see the temperature outside. The window was starting to have the presence of ice on it outside, giving it a strange mirror type of look, or a stained glass kind of feeling.

Kari shrugged, and suddenly stood, smiling. TK looked up at her inquisitively.

"So, what do you want to do?" She grinned. "I finally got that movie you wanted to see..."

TK's eyes widened, and he grinned in return. "Kikujiro? Great, I've heard it's a good movie, and never seen it..."

Kari laughed. "Well, I've never seen it either, so now we'll be able to see if it's as good a movie as all the older kids say..."

"Hey, don't forget us!" a voice came from around the corner. Kari and TK turned to the hallway, where Gatomon and Patamon both walked over.

TK smiled at the two. "Feeling better now Gatomon?"

"Yup, sleeping does a lot for someone."

Kari sighed at the comment. "Which is why you should sleep at night and not be so nocturnal."

"Yeah, you don't want to turn into a poor zombie like Joe has the past month," TK added to Kari's statement.

Gatomon shrugged, and hopped up onto the couch, holding up a movie. "I can't help it...most cats are nocturnal anyway. Here's your movie."

"I'll make popcorn and lots of!" Patamon shouted excitedly, and hopped up into the air.

"We only have one pack left though," Kari answered to Patamon.

"That's okay! Start the movie!"

Kari and TK looked at each other, smiling.

---------------

Matt watched as his breath became more and more visible in front of him, and everything around slowly turned to ice. Wincing, he wrapped his black jacket around himself more closely, his teeth chattering. Inwardly, he hoped his guitar wouldn't be ruined, and resisted a temptation to take it off his back and carry it closely so it wouldn't freeze. But he kept walking down the street, hoping he could get to Tai's apartment before he froze to death or something along those lines.

The weather and everything reminded him of the incident where he'd nearly died in a blizzard back in the Digiworld. Somehow, he was beginning to get a bad sense of déjà vu, and he only hoped he'd be lucky this time. Gabumon wasn't with him, he was in the Digiworld, nice and warm, the lucky mon. And it was only Gabumon who'd saved him last time too.

With a deep sigh, Matt finally decided to give up trying to get to Tai's apartment for the moment until he got warmer. Passing a grocery store, he made a quick decision to stay somewhere until he gained his usual level of comfortable warmth, then run all the way to Tai's.

He turned his head to the grocery store, not seeing any other warmer places anywhere close to his location. Groaning, Matt quickly turned around and stepped into the store.

He didn't regret it. The first thing he saw on his right was a hot coffee stand. "Yes! Warmth!" he grinned under his breath. Rushing over, he quickly grabbed a cup and filled it with coffee, then handed some yen to the vendor, who seemed to be getting a good amount of business that day.

Matt then walked over to the bread isle where he knew there wouldn't be any extra coldness (like the frozen food section, which was the last place he wanted to be right now). He spent the next minute standing there, sipping his coffee and savoring the warmth it gave him, even though it wasn't particularly good coffee.

Matt sighed, standing there with his coffee, until he caught a glimpse of someone with large, bushy brown hair walking past the isle. Blinking, he ran over and poked his head around, smiling when he saw who it was.

"Hey Tai! Fancy seeing you here!" he called out.

Tai turned around, facing away from the shopping cart he was pushing, which had his jacket hung over it. He grinned when he noticed Matt. "Hey Matt! Come to join me buying groceries?"

Matt held up his cup of coffee. "More like escaping the cold and trying to stay warm while attempting to join you in whatever you're doing."

"Well, what I'm doing right now is buying groceries, including some stuff for younger siblings," Tai winked, holding up a couple boxes of popcorn from the cart.

Matt nodded in understanding, and walked over to his friend. "Wonder how they're doing right now..."

"TK should have reached the apartment by now, so I'm guessing they're talking."

"And talk they shall, I suppose," Matt sighed. "Anyway, since I'm here, I might as well help you get groceries."

"All right then," Tai shoved a pad of paper into Matt's hand. "You can go get the bread then, since you were just there. What were you doing anyway?"

"Staying warm, and I intend to keep staying warm. So don't send me to the frozen food section, please."

"Sure."

Matt sighed, glancing at the paper. He noted the specific bread brand, and glanced at Tai, raising an eyebrow. "Is the specific brand important?"

Tai winced. "Yes. Once I got the wrong brand, and Mom was really mad...I've never tried getting the wrong brand since..."

"Okay then...never heard of the great courageous Tai Kamiya who was afraid of his mother's wrath..."

Matt deftly dodged a mock punch at his head, and smiling, walked back into the bread section, still holding his coffee.

For a while, the two of them traded jokes and groceries while they wandered the store, trying to find all the items listed on the list. Though it took some time, they enjoyed it, hanging out and poking fun at some of the live produce kept in the store.

"I remember a time when we would have stopped in our tracks, shrieked and yelled 'FOOD!' had we seen that," Tai pointed at the tank of fish over by the side.

Matt snorted. "Yup, don't you miss those times?"

"Running for our lives from giant beetles and other such monsters? Beating up Bakemon? Saving the world? ...Sometimes yeah, if I'm bogged down with homework..."

"Heh, same here..."

Tai finally grabbed a notebook and a deck of cards, slamming them down into the now full cart. "Well, that's everything. What time is it?"

Matt checked his watch, having discarded the empty container of coffee long before. "About two."

Tai grinned. "Well then, let's go pay for everything and get back home!"

"Into the freezing storm outside."

"Then we'll just get coffee too before we leave."

The two trudged down the aisle, making their way to the front of the store, ready to stand in line, pay an obscene amount for all the groceries, and then make their way through the freezing weather back to the apartment with the bags of groceries. However, as they got close to the end of the aisle, a strange beeping tone came up from the speaker, indicating some sort of important message.

"It's an A major tonic chord, only slightly flat," Matt automatically said, listening to the tone. Tai rolled his eyes.

What they didn't expect though, was the message from the speaker.

"_Shoppers, due to the snowstorm outside, the weather has been deemed too dangerous for anyone to travel through, and so as an order from the Head of the District of Odaiba, an emergency lock-in has been put in place. We apologize for the inconvenience._"

Matt and Tai looked at each other in shock.

The message continued on. "_Until the storm has cleared up and the weather has become safe again, please stay calm and remain within the store. We will continue to give you updates every hour. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience, and we hope you manage to enjoy whatever time you may have to spend here._"

There was dead silence after the announcement.

Tai was the first one to recover from the shock. He gave Matt a somewhat worried look, who glanced back at him. Matt just blinked a lot, until Tai hit him on the head.

"Matt, we're trapped in the grocery store," Tai said shakingly.

"Until the storm has cleared up..." Matt answered slowly. The two looked at each other, and pushing their cart, ran up to the front of the store.

A small crowd of about five people was there too, staring outside and not quite believing what they were seeing. A huge flurry of snow flew down outside, covering the windows with a sheet of white powder. What could be seen through window seemed to be covered in ice. Other windows, though not covered in snow yet, were frosted over, created the effects of broken glass. The door was also frosted over in a similar way, though it had a red light flashing over it.

Matt gave Tai a very serious look. "We're gonna be in here for a while. I don't see any computers around, so we can't travel to places through the Digiworld."

Tai only paused for a moment, getting the familiar look on his face that among the Digidestined had become famous – the leader look. He thought, planning out a decision. "Okay," he breathed, sure of himself. "We have to wait this out. We won't starve, there's already too much food here, so we're set for staying alive for a while at least. So our first plan of action..." He picked up his cell phone. "We call everyone and make sure they're all okay."

Matt sighed, taking out his phone as well. "Assuming that our phones can get a signal through this storm..."

-----------------

Joe heard the announcement, and was immediately relieved that he'd brought so much food in his bag, even though the library didn't allow it. He got up from the desk he was studying at, looking around the room he was sitting in. Besides the huge group of gamers on the computers, only the most studious people around were in there, studying, although most of them were looking around in some shock and giving each other worried looks.

One of the things Joe thought of first included packing up his stuff and going into the Digiworld to try and get home, or even just meet up with some digimon. But one glance around the room, and Joe could tell that he wouldn't be able to. The group of computer kids were using every single computer there, playing some sort of online game. From knowing Izzy so well, he knew he wouldn't be able to convince any of them off of the computers.

So, he resignedly grabbed his cell phone and walked out of the area to the doorway, where he dialed a quick number.

"Come on...Hello, Mom? This is Joe, I'm in the library, and I'm going to be here a while..."

-----------------

Ken, Davis, Yolei, and Cody all glanced at each other in shock. Other shoppers around them seemed to be in the exact same position. There were some people within the mall who completely ignored the announcement.

Yolei however, was the one who lost it. "Oh my god! We're trapped in here. We're TRAPPED!!" She dropped her bag, grabbed Ken by the shoulders and shook him.

Ken sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder. "We'll be okay, if you think about it."

"Yeah, well just wait until the storm blows over! And there's always the Digiworld," Davis said thoughtfully (for once).

Cody glanced over at the four In-training digimon who were playing together on the benches. "In that case, we'll all be okay. If we call our parents to let them know where we are, we should be fine."

"Yeah, we can treat this like a big trip or something!" Poromon yelled back from over where the other Digimon were.

Davis stood silent for a moment, then grinned. "Okay! So I say we just act like normal and continue to have fun!"

And that's what they did.

-----------------------

Izzy, covered in snow and ice and feeling very miserable, dug through his locker for the book he'd forgotten to bring home on Friday. He didn't want to miss another homework assignment, and he desperately needed the book in order to complete it.

He didn't know why he'd walked all the way back to his school just to get a single book, especially through the freezing rain and snow. And he really didn't feel like walking all the way back home in the storm.

With a sigh, he found the book he was looking for and stuffed it into his bag, where thankfully, everything was dry (including his laptop). Still feeling cold and uncomfortable, he glanced out the window. The storm seemed to only be getting worse.

With that, Izzy made a decision and walked over to the computer room. He knew his mom's computer was on, so all he had to do was travel through the Digiworld. Plus, the gate was open, since Sora had told everyone she was going to visit Biyomon and other Digimon.

He was in for a surprise when he found that the gate had closed.

Somewhat unhappy, he stuck his back against the wall of the computer room, and tried to get the gate to work. He had a feeling that the gate's behavior was somewhat related to the horrible storm outside. Looking out the window again, he sighed and sat. He would just wait it out.

-----------------

Sora glanced at the TV back home, where it sat, unresponding to anything. She sighed and stepped back.

Biyomon looked up at her, concerned. "So something's wrong with the gate?"

"It was supposed to be open all day. It's weird, because if it suddenly closed, something strange must be going on in the Real world," Sora answered, involuntarily shuddering. If something strange was going on, then not only did it mean she couldn't help out, she was stuck in the Digiworld for a while.

Biyomon looked worried still. "If that's the case, does that mean that you're stuck here?"

Sora sighed. "I hope I'm not, because too many people would freak out if I didn't go back home, and I wanted to bring you along too for the tennis trip."

"In the middle of winter?"

"Yes, surprisingly."

With another sigh, Sora resignedly took out her D-terminal. Biyomon glanced at her. "So Sora, how are you going to get home?"

Sora shrugged as she wrote her message. "Right now I'm hoping that one of the younger kids can open the gate for me. Unless you're willing to let me stay with you…?" She looked up at Biyomon with pleading eyes.

"Of course Sora! You can stay with me if you can't get home!"

Sora smiled, sending the message. Then she put down her D-terminal and grabbed Biyomon, hugging her tightly. "Thanks."

--------------------

Having sat at a desk and made himself comfortable in the computer room, Izzy idly did his homework with the book he'd gotten, watching his laptop for any signs of change, in case someone emailed him or something. He sighed, flipping another page in the book as he took his notes.

Glancing up at his laptop, he saw he had one new message. He quickly abandoned his homework, eager to see something come up, and checked the screen. He saw it was from Sora, and opened it.

_From:_ _Takenouchi, Sora_

_To:_ _!Everyone_

_Body: Hi everyone, it's Sora. The Gate just closed for some reason, so I can't get home. Is it possible that one of you can open the gate for me? Either that or tell my mom where I am? Thanks, - Sora_

Izzy wasn't sure what to say, but he knew he couldn't open the gate, and therefore probably wasn't the best person to look to first. Still, he sent a reply message.

_From: Izumi, Koushiro_

_To: Takenouchi, Sora_

_Body: Okay, I can't open a gate, but once we get a hold of Davis and the others, we'll be able to see if you can get home. I can still call your mom though, if you need me too. – Izzy_

Izzy sighed as he sent the reply. Looking out the window again, he inwardly hoped the snow would stop for an hour just so he could go home. The Gate was closed, and he was stuck in school on a Sunday doing his homework. Not really what he wanted to be doing. Still, he would rather be inside than out in the storm.

Resignedly, Izzy picked up his pencil again, still feeling somewhat wet from earlier. He turned yet another page.

----------------

_From: Inoue, Miyako_

_To: Takenouchi, Sora_

_Body: Hey Sora, we got your message. I don't know about TK and Kari though. I'm in the mall right now with Davis, Cody, and Ken, so we're looking for a computer. We'll check back._

_I should warn you though – there's a horrible snowstorm outside and there's an emergency lock-in here at the mall, so if you come through a computer here, you won't be able to leave the mall... – Yolei_

After finishing the message and sending it, Yolei glanced over to where Davis, Cody, and Ken were all looking on a standing map of the mall.

"There?" Davis pointed somewhere on the plastic.

Cody shook his head. "Davis, we want something like an electronics store, not a sports store."

Davis shrugged. "Hey, I'm trying!"

Yolei sighed and stuck her D-terminal in her pocket. "Any luck guys?"

Ken pointed at a couple of areas on the map. "Well, the digimon went off to check these areas, and there's another electronics store here we could got to."

"Great! Let's go there then!" Davis immediately pumped a fist into the air and checking the map, started walking away in the corresponding direction. Resignedly, the other three followed.

It didn't take long for them to reach their destination, but all four of them very easily saw that the store had no computers. The room was filled with TV sets ("Wow, if this were the Digiworld," murmured Cody), and attached to each was a gaming platform and controllers. While Ken and Davis were both interested, it wasn't what they were looking for.

"Back to the drawing board," Yolei mumbled, and the four of them trudged quietly away back to the map.

Demiveemon, Poromon, Upamon, and Minomon were all sitting quietly under the map, looking somewhat disappointed. Ken caught onto why. "No computers?"

Demiveemon shook his little head. "Nope, we checked. You guys too?" Ken shook his own head sadly.

"Yeah, we even checked the stores surrounding! No computers!" Poromon piped up.

The four humans were quiet for a moment before it hit them.

"No computers. No computers," Davis said quietly, trying to take in the information.

"We can't get home," Cody stated. "We can't help Sora get home."

For a moment, there was more silence. A feeling of eeriness overcame them, as they tried to take in the fact that the only other way they could get home was by either waiting out the storm, or busting out of the building and breaking a few windows in the process (neither of which were very attractive choices). Then Yolei lost it.

"AAAAAAAAAAAGGHH!!!"

A few passing people looked at her strangely. She completely ignored them.

"There are computers here! There have to be computers here! There must be computers here! There will be computers here! In fact, I'm going to make sure that there are computers here!!" she yelled, seeing a store owner staring at her from behind the counter in his store.

Davis, Cody, Ken, and the digimon all looked at each other, concern for the mental state of their friend showing on their faces. Yolei ignored them as well as she marched away from her friends, straight towards the store owner. She didn't know what she was doing, she only knew that she had to find a computer if any of her friends, including Sora, wanted to get home. Oblivious to the people around her who were surreptitiously raising their eyebrows, she stomped into the store, straight up to the counter, and looked the shop owner straight in the eye. The man stared back, eyes widening in concern.

"Yes, miss?" he asked politely.

"Sir," Yolei took a deep breath. "Can you please broadcast a message over the PHS asking if there are any computers in this entire building, or if anyone has a laptop, and please check in here if you do?"

The man blinked. "Yes, I could, but for what reason?"

"The computer!" Yolei let her temper take control. "I need a computer, because it's the only way I could possibly help many of my friends escape from an inescapable predicament!"

"This predicament being what?"

"AAARRRGGHH!!!"

Back where everyone else was, Minomon turned and glanced at Ken. "I think Yolei has gone crazy."

Ken nodded back. "I agree. Then again, she was always a bit crazy." His eyes turned thoughtful as he said this. "But that's Yolei. And I like her for that."

------------------

Tai angrily punched a bag of rice sitting in his shopping cart. "This isn't working! I can't get a stupid signal through this storm!" He threw down his cell phone onto the bag and plopped down on the tile floor, glowering.

Matt, who was standing and leaning with his back against the cart, sighed as he also threw his cell phone onto the bag of rice. "Hey, at least you got one call in."

"Yeah, my dad. And mom's there too," Tai propped his head up on his hand. "So my parents know, but no one else."

"Hey, same here," Matt answered back.

Tai stared into space. At least Matt had managed two calls, to both his mom and dad in their respective apartments. "Well then, I guess we have to keep trying to reach the others." He gave Matt a glance. "And you didn't bring your D-terminal?"

Matt shook his head. "I didn't think I'd need it. Hey, what happened to yours anyway?" He pointed out at Tai.

"Hey, I didn't think I'd need it either. Who usually needs a D-terminal when you go grocery shopping anyway?" Tai lay down onto the tile floor and stretched out. "Wow...boredom in a grocery store..."

Matt groaned. "Well then, we can be bored together."

At that moment, a beeping tone came up from the speaker.

"Still A major tonic chord, still slightly flat," Matt immediately said.

Tai took his moment to groan. "You and your perfect pitchness..." He mumbled.

Matt grinned back. "You and your tone-deafness," he answered back.

"I'm not tone-deaf! I just can't keep a note, that's all!"

The two of them didn't really listen to the announcement the store keeper gave, all they caught was that the storm was getting worse and all the doors were frosted closed. With a sigh, Tai grabbed a wheel of the shopping cart and pulled it toward him. "Hey Matt, can you get my cell for me? I don't feel like getting up."

Matt rolled his eyes. "Lazy bum you are," he smiled as he leaned over and retrieved both cell phones from where they lay in the cart on the bag of rice.

---------------------

"WHAT, THERE ARE NO COMPUTERS OR LAPTOPS IN THE ENTIRE BLEEPING BUILDING?!?!?!?!"

"I'm sorry miss, but there are none."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Ken very quickly ran up and grabbed Yolei by the shoulders, turning her around. He quickly bowed to the shop owner. "Thank you very much sir," he said politely, before ushering the somewhat freaked out and spazzing Yolei out of the area.

Cody sighed as Ken brought Yolei back to where the group was hanging out by the map. "It's all right Yolei, just calm down. We'll all be fine, we'll just have to tell Sora that we aren't able to help her and hopefully TK and Kari can."

"If they can," Davis muttered as he took out his D-terminal to email Sora.

-------------------

Izzy, having now finished his homework, began to play solitaire on his laptop (he was pretty good too, he beat about half the games he started). It was either that, or surf the web, update his computer, or other such things.

As he beat a game and began thinking he should do something different, his laptop beeped, and he went straight to his email program.

_From: Takenouchi, Sora_

_To: Izumi, Koushiro_

_Body:_ _Izzy, I think I'll take your offer to call my mom. Davis and the others can't find a computer, and I don't know what's happened to TK and Kari. Could you call my mom? And could you also possibly tell me what's going on with the whole snowstorm thing that Yolei mentioned earlier? She says that there's an emergency lock-in at the mall, so no one can leave. Thanks, - Sora_

Izzy decided to send another email back, but reading through Sora's message, he thought about the other digidestined. It was possible that TK and Kari could be in some sort of predicament and stuck somewhere, as well as Davis and the group of younger kids. He pondered the idea of the lock in as well. If that was the case, then Davis, Yolei, Cody, and Ken could possibly be stuck and unable to do anything, and also needed to contact other people...

With a sigh, he decided to do a big check on everyone else as well. First, he sent an email back to Sora.

_From: Izumi, Koushiro_

_To: Takenouchi, Sora_

_Body: Sora, I don't know much about the snowstorm, other than the fact that it's so bad I don't want to walk back home in it. I'm going to send out a big email to everyone else asking where they are and what's going on with them in case they're in a kind of situation like yours. Don't worry, I'll call your mom and let her know where you are. – Izzy_

With that done, Izzy sent the message, and sent out another one.

_From: Izumi, Koushiro_

_To: !Everyone_

_Body: Hey guys, this is Izzy. Just in case you're all stuck somewhere, can you email me back saying where you and everyone else you know of are? Hopefully, we can all help each other out and call parents, or stuff like that. I'll make a big list of where everyone is. – Izzy_

It didn't take long for Izzy to get replies back.

_From:_ _Takenouchi, Sora_

_To:_ _Izumi, Koushiro_

_Body:_ _Hello Izzy, you already know where I am, in the Digiworld, with Biyomon. I think Davis, Yolei, Cody, and Ken are at a mall or something. And I'm pretty sure Mimi isn't involved in anything like this. And thanks for calling my mom. – Sora_

_From: Motomiya, Daisuke_

_To:_ _Izumi, Koushiro_

_Body:_ _Hey Izzy, it's Davis. Me, Ken, Yolei, and Cody are all at the mall. And we're locked in because of the stupid snowstorm outside. Sora's in the Digiworld, Mimi's in America, and Kari's somewhere watching a movie with TK. I don't know where. That's about all I know. – Davis_

_From:_ _Kido, Jyou_

_To:_ _Izumi, Koushiro_

_Body:_ _Sorry Izzy, I just got your email and Sora's too. No one would get off the computers until now, when one guy had to use the bathroom...Anyway, I'm in the library. There's a lock-in here because of the snowstorm. Sora's in the Digiworld, and Mimi is safe in New York with no snowstorm. Where are you anyway? Hope you're okay. – Joe_

Izzy waited for a little while, trying to see if he could get a head up on where TK, Kari, or their older siblings. He was somewhat surprised at the news of the lock-in, in both the mall and the library, but supposed that if the storm really was bad enough that the lock-in had to be implemented, it wasn't very safe for himself to go out either. Deciding to wait on the emails for now, he got up from his chair, pulling out his cell phone, ready to call both Sora's mom and his mom.

He dialed Sora's number first. He calmly brought the phone to his ear, and frowned when he heard only static and a beeping noise coming from the phone. Checking his phone, he looked at the screen and realized that it couldn't get a signal and thus had no service.

Izzy felt just about ready to pull a Tai, and wanted bang his head into a wall.

So he resignedly sent an email out to everyone.

_To:_ _!Everyone_

_From: Izumi, Koushiro_

_Body:_ _Okay, this is Izzy with where everyone is, except for Tai, Matt, TK, and Kari, because I couldn't get a hold of them. If any of you four listed gets this email, please email me with where you are (just check the other emails.) Anyway, here it is:_

_Sora is in the Digiworld._

_Joe is at the Library._

_Davis, Yolei, Cody, and Ken are at the mall together._

_Mimi is in America, perfectly fine._

_I'm at school, in the computer room._

_Let's all keep in touch and give updates on where we are, since if there really is that lock in, we may be trapped where we are for a while. Plus the fact that the Gate to the Digiworld is closed. – Izzy_

With that sent, Izzy then sighed and stood up, deciding to take walk down to the school office, where he knew there was a phone. After that, he would check the weather outside, and hopefully find something to eat.

----------------

"So basically, I had a giant bonfire two inches from my face, and Matt had to run in and extinguish it while I turned off the gas," TK explained a misadventure to a very appreciative crowd sitting on the sofa.

Kari and Gatomon were laughing, while Patamon still looked sheepish. "Well, the potato blowing up really scared me!" Patamon tried to defend.

"You didn't have to tip the frying pan over and pour the oil on the stove burner!"

Kari just shook her head as she made herself more comfortable with a sofa pillow. "Well, at least that proves you can't cook, TK!"

TK grinned, letting himself collapse onto the sofa as well. "Hey, it happened to Matt too when he was eleven! Of course, there was no Patamon to tip over the frying pan..."

Patamon gave his partner a very disgruntled and hurt look. TK immediately picked him up and hugged him. With that, Patamon let go of the look and snuggled up in TK's arms. "Okay, I understand, you're just egging me on or something like that," the small digimon answered.

"Yeah, you're still my friend!"

Kari and Gatomon both laughed, as Gatomon jumped up into Kari's arms as well.

Having finished the movie earlier, the four were now exchanging stories and having light conversations, unsure of what else to do. They hadn't noticed the growing frost on the window and the balcony door, or the strong winds that whistled outside. However, they _had_ noticed that Tai was taking an exceedingly long time getting groceries.

Kari sighed, getting a worried look on her face. TK glanced over, and nodded, realizing what was wrong. "I'm sure Tai's fine," TK said reassuringly. "His hair wasn't wet when he left the apartment, right?"

The digimon snorted, and Kari just smiled, raising her eyebrows. "No, but that doesn't mean he didn't do something stupid like slipping in a puddle and drowning in it."

"How one does that, I'd like to know," Gatomon murmured to herself.

Kari ignored Gatomon's comment. "Besides, if something had come up, he would have called home or let one of the other Digidestined know."

TK shrugged. "Yeah, I understand. Either that, or he has tried to call, and something's wrong?"

"In that case, you should just go call him!" Patamon and Gatomon exclaimed at the same time. For a brief moment, their eyes met and both digimon blinked at each other.

Kari gently put Gatomon down. "Great digiminds think alike," she muttered to Gatomon, as she stood to approach the phone. TK calmly set Patamon down next to Gatomon, so he could turn around and watch Kari as she called her brother.

Kari quickly walked over the phone, ready to pick it up and dial Tai's cell phone number. To her surprise, as she reached for it, it suddenly started to ring.

"Maybe it's him," TK called from his place on the couch. Patamon and Gatomon both hopped up onto the back of it to watch Kari as well.

Kari picked it up. "Hello?"

"YES!! IT WORKED!! IT WORKED!!"

All four occupants of the room jumped at the sound of Tai's voice emanating from the phone. Kari gently held the phone about a foot away from her, as Matt's voice also came from the phone, saying, "Tai, shut up! Even the store manager's staring at us now!"

While TK perked up, surprised to hear his brother's voice, Kari carefully turned down the phone volume. "Okay, I'm glad something worked Tai, now where are you?!" Kari almost yelled into the phone, her worry showing in her face and tone.

TK could almost picture Tai cringing on the other line.

"Sorry Kari, I'm in the grocery store with Matt. The manager says it's too dangerous for anyone to go outside so we're locked in and have been for the past couple hours," Tai replied.

Kari blinked. "Too dangerous to go outside? Why?"

Tai seemed somewhat surprised at Kari's answer. "You don't know? There's a lock-in here and just about everywhere else too."

"A lock in?"

There was an audible sigh from Tai's end of the line. "There's a blizzard outside, Kari. So no one can leave the store. I'm sorry I couldn't get a hold of you earlier, but the blizzard kept messing with my phone signal and I couldn't call in."

Kari's face softened. "I understand now. So you and Matt are stuck in the grocery store?"

"Yep. Hey, is TK there? Matt wants to talk to him."

"Yeah, he is. Just a sec." Kari turned away from the phone and held it out to TK, who, guessing what was going on, got up from the couch and accepted the phone from Kari.

"Hello?"

"TK, you're there and everything?" came Matt's voice.

"Yep, all here and thawed after nearly being frozen."

Matt laughed. "That makes a pair of siblings who both suffered from nearly becoming popsicles. I'm just glad you're at Tai's apartment and safe."

TK laughed as well. "And I'm glad that you're safe, whether you be in a grocery store or not."

Matt let out a groan. "Believe me, the grocery store is getting boring. I can tell you exactly which isle holds wheat germ and which one has natto sitting in it."

"Well, enjoy your natto then..."

Matt made a disgusted noise. TK snorted and began laughing slightly. Kari and Gatomon both gave TK strange looks, while Patamon slowly nodded in understanding, a grin growing on his face.

"'Well, call Mom, and be safe," Matt advised to TK.

TK grinned. "You too, as safe as you can be in the grocery store."

"Yes, dangerous cooking utensils everywhere."

Shaking his head, TK rolled his eyes as he gave the phone back to Kari. She gladly accepted, putting it to her ear as she waited for Tai to come back on the line.

"Hey again sis, you good there?" Tai asked in his cocky manner.

Kari sighed. "As good as I'll be if this lock in really is taking place everywhere."

"Yeah, because if it lasts for a while, you'll be in that house alone with TK...for a while..." Tai's tone seemed to suggest something strange, something Kari couldn't really put her hand on. It had to be something of interest though, since she heard Matt groan in the background, and a telltale whoosh of someone ducking a playful swing.

She decided not to bother. "I hope all goes well in that case, since you're in the store with Matt..."

"Hey, we'll probably just play card games, or sing 'Kumbaya' or something like that," Tai commented, as crackle began to enter into the conversation.

Kari frowned. The crackle began to cover up more of the sound she heard, and soon she realized she wouldn't be able to hear Tai at all. "Tai, I think you're losing your signal," she told him.

"I think so too. I'll try and call in often to see how you're doing, kay?"

"Okay. Bye Tai."

"Bye Kari."

Kari sighed as she hung up the phone, and replaced it onto its holder. She gained a worried look on her face, and she glanced at TK, who seemed to be not only reading her mind, but also worried too. The two sighed simultaneously and both glanced at the door.

They also thought simultaneously, because they both realized something at the same time.

Kari showed her thoughts first, when she glanced at the frosted window, so covered in ice she couldn't see out of it. It was the same with the balcony door, and she couldn't even spot the balcony railing outside through the heavily covered and frosted door. It was almost as though a heavy layer of snow and ice had obscured all sight outside from the occupants of the apartment.

She nodded to Gatomon. "Gatomon, can you go over to the window and open it?"

Gatomon jumped up in response, hopping towards the window, while Patamon, the only one there who didn't understand why everyone had suddenly become tense, blinked in confusion. "Why open the window?" he murmured, "It's cold out..."

He turned to watch as Gatomon undid the window latch and tried to pull the window open. Everyone's eyes widened in shock as Gatomon strained to open the window, and finally pulled so hard that there a large CRACK sounded. And suddenly there was a design of broken glass across the window.

Gatomon jumped in shock herself, staring at the seemingly broken window, before turning towards the other three dumbstruck souls in the room. Her tail and shoulders sagged, and her face clearly showed a very guilty and embarrassed look. "I'm...sorry..." she said very quietly.

Kari said nothing, and simply rushed to the window. She squinted at it for a moment, then widened her eyes. Before Gatomon had a chance to feel worse, Kari quickly said, "The window isn't broken, Gatomon, it's fine. It's something outside the window that's broken..."

While Gatomon sighed in relief and turned back to the window, TK and Patamon both gave each other glances, Patamon finally understanding the meaning behind the tense moment. The two of them rushed to the sliding door that opened the way to the balcony. After undoing the lock, TK carefully placed his hands on the door panel, with Patamon grabbing it as well while flying, and the two attempted to pull the door open.

Needless to say, they failed miserably, as the ice outside kept the door tightly shut.

TK and Kari looked at each other. They both had the same thing going through their minds, and immediately ran for the door of the apartment, Patamon and Gatomon with them. Without bothering to put their shoes on in the threshold, Kari reached the door first and undid the lock. She grabbed the handle, turned, and pulled as hard as she could.

The door refused to budge.

Seeing Kari's strained face as she tried to open the door, TK placed his hands on the handle as well. Together, the two tried to pull the door open, but to no avail. They only succeeded in becoming extremely red in the face and making their hands feel raw with pain.

"Well, in that case..." Patamon jumped forward, and TK's D3 began to glow.

Gatomon, Kari, and TK all turned around, eyes widening, and yelled in shock, "GYAA, NOO!!"

At that, Patamon stopped in mid-air, and the glow surrounding TK's D3 dissipated.

TK sighed. "I'm sorry Patamon, but I don't think Kari's parents or her Tai would be too pleased if we broke down their front door."

"Not to mention we could be very cold..." Kari muttered.

The four stayed silent for a moment, glancing at each other with uncertainty and idly looking around. They all knew exactly what was going on, and the predicament they'd gotten into. With some more moments of silence, it slowly sunk in that they were trapped together in the apartment for however long it took for the ice on the doors to melt and for the storm to stop. It could possibly take a while.

"Well then," TK said aloofly, idly twiddling his thumbs as he thought about the situation. "Why don't we play some random games or something like that?"

"Either that, or we can sing '99 Bottles of Pop on the wall' and go down infinitely, seeing which negative number we're on by the time we get out of here..." Gatomon mumbled.

Even with all the different suggestions being given, all four had a pretty good idea that they would be stuck in the apartment for quite a while...


	2. Chapter 2: Dealing with Digidestined

Disclaimer: Own Digimon, I do not. Such things as card games like Spit, video games, and sugar highs, own I do not. Talk like Yoda, I stop now.

A/N: Well, it's been a very long time since I first uploaded this thing, but I promised, I was still working on it. And here it is, the second chapter, and the first night... It's kinda long as a warning though. Also, the video game that Ken, Yolei and Davis are playing, I was thinking of Soul Calibur when I was writing the story, but of course I've only played the game once and that was when Digimon season 2 was still on Fox Kids. So some things may be wrong - it's only the result of my tired memory.

I will try my best to work on this story, because it's almost like a giant compilation of a lot of misadventures put together... and for good reason!

* * *

_**Chapter 2 – Dealing with Digidestined**_

_In which the Digidestined, now trapped in such horrid places like the local grocery store and other various locations, must learn to deal with their situations._

"SPIT!" shouted two voices simultaneously, as a loud smack echoed across the room. While the other five customers raised their eyebrows as they glanced over at the candy and snack food section, the two sitting on the tile floor in the specific aisle didn't notice, and quite frankly, didn't care.

Tai winced as he picked up his hand from the smaller of two card piles. "Matt, you didn't have to slap so hard," he commented as he took the small pile.

Matt gave a half grin, having taken his hand away from the pile (and the top of Tai's hand) only a moment earlier. "Sorry, I keep getting the larger pile, and I wanted to finally win a round for once. I guess I overdid it." He swept the other pile into his own deck and began shuffling his cards.

Tai shrugged, as he began to shuffle his own cards. "Not my fault I have faster hands than you."

"You just like to wait until I get rid of all the cards in my set to slap the pile, don't you?"

"Hey, I can't win against your 'Spit' skills, and you can't win against my slapping. So we're even."

"Though in the end, it's the slapping that counts..."

Having bought the non-food part of the groceries list earlier, Matt and Tai were now lounging on the floor playing card games. They didn't have much else to do, and they had to keep themselves occupied somehow. They had purposely left the main cart in the frozen food section to keep the food cold, leaving the two of them somewhat bored.

As the two put together their Spit sets on the floor, the announcement tone rung throughout the store. Matt looked around to find the loudspeaker, whereupon he glared at it. Neither of the two boys bothered to hear the announcement, which only gave updates on the weather, as they'd discovered. "Still slightly flat?" Tai asked.

"Yep...it would help if they either fixed the tone or replaced the batteries on their PA system..." the blond boredly replied as he set down his pile and got ready to draw a card from it for another round of the game.

Tai also set down his pile, grinning at Matt. "Ready?"

"Whenever you are."

With that, the two quickly drew a card from their respective piles, placing each one on the floor between them, face up. From there, a brief scuffle of cards being flipped over and slapped onto the middle piles occurred.

"Argh, I can't play any more cards," Tai complained.

"Same here. Draw?"

The two each drew a card from their piles, and repeated the same procedure, but this time, Matt managed to play all the cards sitting in front of him, and before Tai could react, Matt had managed to slap the smaller of the two piles in the middle of their playing field.

"SPIT!"

As Tai sighed in defeat, Matt happily took away the small pile. "Well, you finally won a round," he commented, as he resignedly took away the larger pile.

There was brief silence as the two shuffled their cards, until Tai snatched a box of fruit snacks from the shelf. "Should we get this?"

"Go ahead."

As Tai went off to the counter to buy the box of fruit snacks, Matt thought about what could be going on everywhere else. All he knew was that Kari and TK were at Tai's apartment, together, and that Sora had gone to the Digiworld earlier. He wasn't sure how the entire thing would turn out, but he knew that Sora would be relatively shocked when she saw the condition the entire district of Odaiba was in.

The thought of the Digiworld made Matt suddenly remember how someone could travel through a computer to the Digiworld and out. Which meant that TK and Kari could actually travel to the Digiworld...

As Tai returned with the box of fruit snacks, Matt glanced up, having already set out his cards for another round. "Hey Tai, I just thought of something. Can't TK and Kari still travel to the Digiworld? So they won't be trapped in your apartment?"

Tai stopped for a moment, before sighing and plopping down to the floor, opening up the box. "No, they can't..." he smiled sadly in a strange, knowing way.

"Why not? Does this have anything to do with what you said about them in the same apartment during the phone conversation earlier?"

"Well..."

* * *

TK stared at Kari incredulously. "Of the two computers in the apartment, one is at the shop and the other has a broken monitor!" 

Kari smiled apologetically. "The computer here still turns on though..."

"But it's no help if we can't see what we're doing on it."

"I know. At least it exists though."

"It exists. Yeah sure, that helps," TK answered sarcastically.

The two sighed as they sat together on the couch, every now and then glancing at the window and wondering what they were supposed to do while they were trapped in the apartment. They could hear the whistling wind outside, and unable to see through the window, they could only imagine what everything looked like outside.

A glance at both Gatomon and Patamon staring wistfully at the window informed them of what everyone was thinking. They couldn't leave the apartment, and TK and Patamon couldn't go home. Although, Kari found that surprisingly, she didn't mind. It would actually be kind of fun to have TK stay over longer, like when they were younger and TK still tended to follow Matt around a lot.

"So..." TK began, not sure where to start.

"Umm..." Kari didn't know what else to say either.

"Food?"

The two humans turned towards the digimon, who had both said the word at the same time. Gatomon and Patamon looked at each other, before grinning sheepishly.

Kari sighed, standing up. "It's fine, I'll make something."

TK grinned. "At least I know for a fact that you cook better than your mom!"

Kari laughed as she walked over to the kitchen. "Tai made sure of that when we got back from the Digiworld over three years ago. So...I guess now I get out the frying pan and find a potato..."

"Kari!"

Kari only smiled. "I'm joking, TK. Unless you would like to try helping?"

TK blinked, before immediately jumping off the couch and making his way to the kitchen. "Of course! Count me in!"

"I'll just make sure to keep the potatoes away from you."

The two laughed as they opened the fridge and searched for something to eat.

* * *

Unable to leave the library, Joe did the only thing he could do – study. But having gone over his study material roughly three times now, he was starting to find himself bored and unchallenged with everything, as well as slightly sleepy. However, he refrained from taking a nap because he did not want to mess up his sleep schedule, and besides, it would look strange. 

Sighing, Joe put down his book and stared at the desktop computer in front of him. He'd managed to swipe its use from one of the gamers earlier, before modifying it slightly so that the large multiplayer online game the other gamers had been playing wouldn't start up (He would have to thank Izzy for teaching him how to do that). Ever since then, the gamers had abandoned the computer, and Joe had taken it for himself.

However, it didn't help much. He'd found the Gate to the Digiworld closed, which meant that he couldn't go anywhere. The only good part to the computer was that he could now check his email and surf the web, which certainly was better than being bored. After all, he'd left his D-terminal at home, so he had no other way of contacting the others, aside from his cell phone.

Having already checked his email, seeing the snowstorm update with the other Digidestined, and not knowing what else to do, not really wanting to keep studying even more than he had to, Joe quietly logged into an Instant Messaging program and sat back, wondering if anyone would bother to IM him. He was pretty sure that he would find Izzy online, which meant that he would have someone to talk to.

Like Joe expected, Izzy was online. And Izzy was evidently bored, much like he was, because Izzy immediately IM'd him.

**Hi Joe, you're never online.**

Joe shrugged as he answered.

_**Well, not much else to do in the library, except read.**_

_**There's never a problem with that though.**_

**Well, at least you have books to read and other people to talk to... **

_**You're just by yourself at school, huh?**_

**Yeah...me and the laptop. **

_**Ha...me and a large group of gamers, students, and random people...**_

**More interesting than me.**

Joe sighed. He supposed that if the conversation seemed boring now, it would only get more interesting later on...

* * *

Splash. 

Sora sighed as she gently waved her fishing rod around, letting the end of the reel bob up and down in the water. She gazed out over the lake, serenely watching the sun set as she sighed, letting the cool breeze blow over her. Sitting in the grass on the bank of the lake, she felt the warm sun bathe her in a glowing light.

It was at that moment that for some reason, she felt incredibly lucky to be in the Digiworld and not freezing back home.

Not only that, but she had an extremely good reason to miss school and stay with Biyomon.

Feeling a sudden tug on the rod, she pulled it up, playing with the fish on the other end for a moment before reeling it in. It had been a long time since she had lived out in the woods with only some survival techniques and Biyomon. In fact, because she was stuck in the Digiworld, it made her feel as though she were young and carefree again. Though she was very worried for her mom.

Izzy had emailed her about her mom a few moments earlier, and now Sora couldn't help but think about what a horrible predicament everyone was in. He had sent the email about the other Digidestined earlier, and it was bad enough knowing where everyone was stuck. And then there was her own mother, who was now trapped in her own flower shop. And there wasn't anything Sora could do about it...

Biyomon trotted over with a wingful of fruit, setting it down gently next to Sora. She noticed Sora's troubled expression, even though Sora had just reeled in a relatively large fish. "Sora, what's wrong?"

Sora sighed. "I'm just worried about my mom. She's in her flower shop."

Biyomon paused for a moment, then nodded. "I understand, Sora. A flower shop isn't the safest place to get stuck in, right?"

Sora only let out a resigned breath. She shook her head. "No. But I'm glad that it happens to have an internal heating system... and extra supplies in case of emergencies."

Biyomon gave Sora a smile, before hopping over and giving her a hug. "It'll be all right, Sora. The storm will be over and then your mom will be safe! And I'll take care of you until then!"

Sora returned the hug gratefully. "Thank you, Biyomon." Then she grinned. "Now let's work on dinner."

Biyomon hopped up enthusiastically, and flew off to find some more fruit. With that, Sora turned to the large fish she'd managed to catch. Letting go of some of her past feelings, she focused her attention onto the fish, putting a curled hand to her chin in thought. Inwardly, she felt relieved due to the existence of food, thinking about how during the first adventure, everyone had spent a good deal of time trying to keep from starving. She giggled slightly at the memory of trying to fish after File Island had split, and instead of getting a fish, she had caught Gomamon and Joe.

With being stuck in the Digiworld, she now had plenty of time for nostalgia and reminiscing.

With a shrug, Sora picked up the fish and began moving over to the fire pit she and Biyomon had made earlier. There, she placed it down, then decidedly stood to search for some firewood and a sharp rock to cut the fish with.

Despite everything, she actually was very relieved not to be stuck in the ice storm back home. She could deal with being in the Digiworld for a while, as she had done it before, and the ice storm would have just confined her to one building. In fact, she felt lucky for being in the Digiworld and thus not being trapped in various places like everyone else.

There also wasn't very much she could do about it either. All she could do was wait.

* * *

Izzy felt a strange combination of things. For one, he felt somewhat lightheaded and unable to think correctly, yet extremely happy and jumpy. He also felt a little sick. 

Looking around his chosen spot where he had set up his laptop, he smiled bleakly at the many candy wrappers and empty cans of soda. Thus had been his dinner – a large amount of sugar, and thus empty calories, lots of carbohydrates, and the reason for his strange state of mind.

It wasn't as though he could do anything about it, as the only other option had been to starve.

Belatedly, he mused on some thoughts, trying to bring a little bit of sanity back into his mind. He'd never known that vending machine food could be so expensive... and he only had so much yen. Thinking logically, he thought about the cost of the food he'd just bought (or the term pseudo-food made more sense), and did some mental math to see how long his money would last out if he used the same amount, each for three meals each day.

Izzy smiled to himself. Even though slightly brain-dead and hyper, he still had the wits about him to successfully do math and think. It was certainly a good achievement.

Nonetheless, he wasn't pleased with his results. According to his calculations, he only had enough money left for one day if he indulged in the same amount of sugar as he just had.

Then again, maybe it also wasn't such a good idea to have so much sugar. His current state certainly reflected that. And unfortunately, it was being made even more obvious in his IM conversation with Joe.

**Wheee heee heee! **

Joe's reply seemed very concerned.

_**Izzy, are you sure you're all right? You've slowly gone from completely normal to practically insane!**_

**Yeah, I noticed too. Not my fault! Whehehehe? Bunny!**

_**Bunny? ... Izzy, what the heck are you doing!**_

**There's nothing wrong with bunnies, besides the fact that they breed like lunatics resulting in lots of little bunnies... which is perfectly normal for living organisms because they want to reproduce. Now on the other hand, seaweed is a lot more practical. **

_**Now you've lost me. **_

**It's Seaweed! We eat it and agar and stuff comes from it too. See, I can be smart!**

_**Uh, Izzy...**_

**See, Seaweed and Bunnies can do stuff and all is happy. Yeah? Whee hee heee?**

**_What is WRONG with you Izzy! Are you drunk or something!_**

**_

* * *

_**

Joe was certainly very worried about Izzy's well being. Izzy just wasn't acting like Izzy. Narrowing his eyes, he decided to get down the bottom of the problem and see exactly what kind of thing Izzy had ingested to cause him to act in this manner.

_**Okay, what was the last thing you ate?**_

**... Chocolate?**

_**Before that?**_

**You mean before all the candy?**

_**What else besides candy?**_

**Uh... soda?**

Joe groaned, ignoring the glances of the other people in the library. "Well, that explains it," he mumbled softly. Inwardly, he felt somewhat peeved and annoyed. The only person he could normally have an intelligent conversation with was on an uncharacteristic sugar high.

Looking around, Joe sighed and decided he needed something to calm his nerves. With that, he grabbed a granola bar out of his bag defiantly broke one of the major rules of the library by opening the wrapper and taking a large bite out of the bar. He noticed one library assistant eying the granola bar in a slightly disapproving manner, but he ignored the glance.

In fact, Joe found it slightly surprising that no one stopped him from eating.

In the meantime, he kept typing, trying to find some way to keep Izzy from completely going off on a hyper streak of sugar-induced craziness.

_**Okay Izzy, don't eat any more candy.**_

**I can't, I already ate it all.**

Joe winced. After a pregnant pause, he began typing again.

_**Okay then, I guess we wait.**_

**Wait for what? **

_**For your sugar level to go down!**_

**I was hungry! I had to eat something! What have you eaten anyway?**

Joe absently chewed on his granola bar.

_**Nothing yet, but I just broke one of the sacred rules of the library and started eating a granola bar.**_

**Wow, you're such a bad person Joe.**

_**You're one to talk, you hyper sugar eating fiend you.**_

Joe sighed, and placed his head into his hands. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

TK delicately poked some of the mystery meat Kari had found in the fridge with a single chopstick. "Are you sure this chicken is safe?" 

"I hope it is," Kari answered, as she set the table for four. "Because if it isn't, we're having a really small dinner."

TK laughed bleakly as he looked at what the two of them had prepared as a meal. On the table sat four glasses of water, four apples, a piece of bread, and the pot of suspicious looking grayish chicken. There hadn't been much else in the apartment, and as the person in charge of buying the groceries was currently trapped in the grocery store, they couldn't really elaborate on their simple meal. Still, it was better than nothing, and there were a good few cans of food in some of the shelves just in case there were problems with what was in the fridge, or they ran out of everything else.

Gatomon hopped up onto her usual stool, sniffing at the chicken. "I don't trust it," she said finally, sitting back with her nose wrinkled up.

Both TK and Kari frowned. Usually, when Gatomon didn't trust something, it was always best to follow her example.

Patamon, who was on the table, also leaned forward to sniff the chicken, leaning back in a few moments with a suspicious look.

TK shrugged. "I guess we could also get Miko to come and smell-test..."

Kari shook her head. "Mom dropped Miko off at the vet earlier today before going to meet with Dad."

_That explains why I haven't seen Miko the entire time I've been here..._, TK thought to himself. Then he sighed and replied, "I guess Miko is having lots of fun with the vet then... for however long this ice problem lasts."

Kari suddenly nodded, understanding TK's comment. "Which is why we're all here now..."

For a moment, there was silence as the two contemplated their situation. As they were trapped in the same apartment now, they both knew they had to live together for a short while until the ice melted.

TK didn't actually mind, and it seemed that Kari didn't either.

Gatomon took an apple and delicately sliced it into eight pieces. "Well, we have to eat something, right?" she answered when the other three looked at her.

Patamon shrugged and also grabbed an apple. "Good point," he commented brightly, before taking a large bite.

TK and Kari glanced at each other, and with a smile, they both sat at the table, and like the digimon, each took and apple and began to eat.

For a moment, there was only the sound of chewing as everyone munched on their respective apples. The bread had been temporarily forgotten, and no one dared touch the chicken as of yet. However, soon the apples had been consumed, and the only thing that kept everyone's interest was the pot of meat in the middle of the table.

TK carefully picked up his single chopstick again and poked the chicken with it. The chicken turned slightly green and jiggled. He blinked, then eyed it suspiciously, unsure if he should really attempt to eat it. Leaning forward, he examined the interior of the pot, sniffing surreptitiously.

Finally, with a sigh, he put down the chopstick and spooned a piece of the chicken into his bowl. At the stare from the others, he shrugged and replied, "Well, we won't know if we can eat it unless someone tries it. I'll just be the taste tester..." and on a whim, he added brightly, "...and if I turn purple, which I probably will, you'll know there's definitely something wrong."

Kari shuddered. "Thanks for volunteering TK. But you do know that's my mother's cooking..."

TK picked up his chopsticks. "Then I hope my stomach survives," he answered, taking a deep breath and picking up the chicken with his chopsticks.

"Good luck," Gatomon said.

With that, TK took a bite.

It was one of the nastiest things he had ever eaten in his life.

Kari and the others watched as TK's sat blankly, staring into space, blinking with unfocused eyes. Slowly, his face began to pale, eventually turning a yellow-green. Soon, the sides of his mouth began to wrinkle in an attempt not to throw up. All in the meantime, he continued to blink in quick succession, until it became evident that he was trying to keep his stomach in one piece.

He quickly grabbed his glass of water and downed it before he could make a fool of himself by throwing up at the table.

Panting, TK turned to the others and grinned weakly, slowly returning to a more normal color. Then he shook his head. "Don't eat it," he advised, before letting himself sit back in his chair and relax after the brief battle of stomach will power.

The others gladly pushed the pot of almost dangerously radioactive chicken away. "Are you all right?" Kari asked, ready to give TK her water if need be.

TK nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine... this isn't the first time I've experienced something like this..." he answered, thinking about Matt's Mad Mystery Confection (the one with hot sauce, wasabi, and mystery meat covered in green fuzz).

"Good," Kari replied, standing up and taking TK by the shoulder. "Because if the chicken was able to do that to you when you put it in your mouth, imagine what it'll do since you had to swallow it."

TK sighed, knowing what Kari wanted him to do. Plus, he was starting to feel somewhat sick, and had a strange feeling that he could be turning green (to match the chicken, no doubt). "All right, I'll go lie down," he murmured, letting Kari gently steer him out of the seat and push him towards the couch, barely catching sight of Gatomon and Patamon whispering in each other's ears and laughing slightly.

* * *

Having already eaten dinner at the food court, the group of four Digidestined and four digimon lounged together on a couple of benches, bored and unsure of what to do. They were all sure they could keep their minds on something, considering they were trapped inside of a shopping mall, but for the moment, their minds were blank. 

"We can eat more food!" piped up Demiveemon, who was quickly joined by the other digimon in a cheer of "Food! Food! Food! Food!"

Davis groaned. "You guys ate more than the rest of us put together!"

"Yeah, we only have so much money," Yolei continued, as she let herself pull her entire body onto the bench. "We have to save some for later!"

"Aw..." came the collective disappointed sighs of the digimon, as they sat back down in their respective partner's laps.

Cody shifted slightly where he sat next to Yolei. He idly picked up a hand and began playing with the leaf of a large potted plant that sat next to the bench. "Is there anything we can do that we haven't already done?"

Ken, who was beside Davis on the opposite bench, let his chin rest on his hand as he contemplated solutions to the problem of boredom. "Well, besides being practical and finding a good place to spend the night... no," he admitted.

There was a moment of silence. Then Davis made one comment that summed up everyone's feelings. "So... dang... boring... I... could... die..." he moaned, burying his head in his arms.

While Davis began complaining into the sanctum of his arms, the other three stayed silent, casting glances around the large area where many others had also found specific areas and were resting as well. Seemingly, everyone was bored out of their minds, as people had resorted to lounging around, playing games, talking, or pacing. One group had even begun singing campfire songs.

Ken winced as one particularly out of tune person belted out "Kumbaya" in English at the top of his lungs. He deftly covered Minomon's ears, sparing the small digimon from the horrible sound of off-pitch singing. "It's going to be a long night," he sighed resignedly, shaking his head.

The others also sighed in agreement, each human in turn helping their digimon mask out the sound of singing by covering their partner's ears. Again, they sat in silence, unsure what to do that might take their attention away from the horrible noises of "Kumbaya."

Then Cody, thinking slightly, suddenly spoke. "You know, I'm surprised," he commented, "Davis hasn't started making a fuss asking to go to the arcade yet."

Cody quickly realized he should never have mentioned it.

Davis suddenly perked up, an expression of happiness and glee in his face. "You're right Cody, we haven't! We can go there!" He shouted in excitement, before adding, "And there was that one store that had all the TVs in it with gaming platforms too! We could also go there!"

"Is there food?" Demiveemon piped up. The other digimon also jumped up, out of their partner's laps and onto the floor in front of Davis.

Davis blinked. "I don't think so..."

"Aw..." came the combined sigh of disappointment.

Ken put a hand to his chin in thought. "Hmm... it does sound more interesting than sitting at these benches..."

Yolei had also copied Ken's posture, although she had curled her hand into a fist instead. "I do remember where the store was," she also replied.

Davis suddenly had a brilliant (or as brilliant as Davis came) idea. He looked at the members of the team.

First came Cody. Davis knew for a fact that Cody did not normally play video games. However, with Yolei and Ken...

"You don't play video games," he said bluntly, pointing at Cody. Cody only blinked, slightly confused as to why Davis was mentioning the obvious.

Then Davis turned to Ken. "You play video games," he again said bluntly.

Ken only nodded, starting to see where the conversation was going.

Finally, Davis turned to Yolei. "You also play video games," he pointedly glared at her.

Yolei cocked her head to one side, acting as though there was nothing wrong with being a computer nerd who enjoyed gaming. "Yeah, so?"

Davis only looked at Ken and grinned. Ken glanced back, realizing what Davis was planning, and he in turn, also smiled. The two gave a sly gaze to Yolei, who suddenly had a revelation and understood what was going on. In unison, the three of them nodded.

"YAHOO!"

All three shot away from the bench, speeding away in the direction of the gaming store they had run into earlier, leaving behind a stunned Cody and four equally stunned digimon. The group sat for a few moments in shock.

"I...think us being in this mall is slowly making us go crazy," Cody finally croaked out.

The digimon all nodded (or bounced, in the case of Poromon and Upamon) in agreement. Minomon especially agreed, because Ken must have had a slight burst of insanity or been extremely bored, or he would not have shot up yelling 'Yahoo'.

Finally, all the digimon turned to Cody expectantly. Cody, unsure of what to do, shrugged, and reached into one of the many bags to pull out four pencils. "Well, until they get back, I might as well teach you some very basic kendo..." he muttered.

"With pencils?" Upamon asked, picking one up and eying it suspiciously.

"Do we have much a choice?"

Poromon blinked, then sighed. "Not really..."

Cody placed his head in his hands, trying to ignore the "Kumbaya" in the background. "Ken was right. This _is_ going to be a long night."

* * *

"SPIT!" 

"OW!"

"Sorry!"

"Wow, my hand is turning red... you slap too hard, Matt."

"Heh."

Shuffle shuffle.

"One...two...three...go!"

Silence.

"No more?"

"Yeah. Ready?"

"Yeah."

"One...two...three...go!"

Silence.

"SPIT!"

"OW!"

Munch.

"Man, how can you do that, Matt? Eating at a time like this when the stakes of our Spit game are so high!"

"I'm hungry! Eat your own dinner, Tai!"

"Okay."

CHOMP.

"...uh..."

"Mrmph?"

"Don't choke on that sandwich."

"Drrg ri krre?"

Sigh. "Just finish it, Tai."

Chew chew chew.

Gulp.

"Back to the game then, Matt."

"Yes."

Shuffle shuffle.

"One...two...three...go!"

Silence.

"SPIT!"

"OW!"

* * *

_To think it would come to this,_ Joe thought glumly as he typed yet another response to Izzy's crazed comments. The younger boy had not calmed down since his original outbursts earlier, and Joe was desperately acting as a therapist so Izzy wouldn't completely lose his mind and jump out a closed window (breaking it in the process, of course). He was blatantly ignoring the stares of many others as he ate another granola bar, decidedly his last for the day. 

_**Izzy... take deep breaths.**_

Joe felt like he was a shrink at this point.

**Izzy's taking breaths! Izzy's taking miniscule ones! Izzy's hyper, whee!**

"Great, now he's typing in third person," Joe muttered, almost sensing the arrival of a headache soon.

**_No no, you want deep, large breaths. Think _**

Joe paused for a moment, sending the message in the meantime.

**Think what? Polysaccharides! Glucose plus Fructose!**

Joe quickly answered, adding the continuation of the last message along with it.

**_Computer things. No, no thinking of sugars, Izzy, stay away from biochem. Think deep, philosophical thoughts about the latest in Pineapple Laptop technology..._**

Joe desperately hoped that Izzy's sugar high would wear off soon. He did not want to have to counsel the insane Izzy throughout the night... and he certainly did not want to develop a migraine due to trying to control Izzy's mental state. Joe honestly had no idea how sugar could have such a huge effect on someone like the young Child of Knowledge, and he made a mental note to keep Izzy away from it in the future.

But first, he had to deal with the present. And presently, Izzy was still...

**Crazy mad, heh?**

_**Yes, Izzy. Quite.**_

**All good fun. Polysaccharides. Sucrose.**

**_NO. NO SUGAR._**

**You're no fun.**

_**You've become Tai.**_

**I hope not.**

Joe blinked, raising an eyebrow. Izzy seemed to be calming down...

_**Are you sane yet?**_

**No. But I'm really tired all of a sudden... **

_**Then go to sleep or something. You need the rest.**_

**You have a point. I think I will.**

Joe sighed in relief. He guessed that the sugar had worn down, and in the fashion of the aftermath of a sugar high, Izzy was now extremely tired and out of energy. Joe actually thought this was a good thing.

_**All right then. I'll let you know if the weather changes while you're asleep.**_

**Thanks. Oh, and thanks for listening to me rant for all these hours... I guess sugar does strange things, huh?**

_**I'll say. Well, I'll talk to you later.**_

**Okay. Good night.**

_**Good night to you too, Izzy.**_

Joe sighed as Izzy logged off. He personally felt relieved that he was no longer speaking with the hyperactive red-haired Digidestined of Knowledge, though slightly guilty about the fact that he had left Izzy alone in the aftermath of a sugar high. But then again, Izzy would just spend the time sleeping, and then Joe could once again have a perfectly normal conversation the next day.

Besides, Joe wanted to keep his sanity. It was one of the few things he had managed to keep throughout all his adventures in the past (from pulling an all-nighter studying during the weekend, to running for his life from Lord Bakemon), and someone on a sugar high trapped in his own school was not going to take it away.

It was a slightly mean thought, but when trapped in buildings and in danger of losing one's mind, one never had much more of an alternative.

* * *

Kari felt horrible. Even though TK had assured her multiple times that she should not be blaming herself for anything ("I was the one stupid enough to eat it, you didn't make me!"), she still felt like she had been a horrible host, to one of her closest friends of all people. 

Sighing, she carefully lead a heavily Tylenol-dosed (and therefore, somewhat out of it) TK to Tai's room. "I'm so sorry about this, TK," she mumbled for the millionth time.

"Don't blame yourself Kari, it was really my own fault," he replied weakly, cracking a half smile. "At least we know what to do the next time someone like Myotismon comes to town."

The image of Myotismon turning green and choking on the pot of dangerous chicken made Kari giggle slightly. Then she sighed as she turned the knob and lead TK into the room. Kicking aside some of the soccer gear on the floor, she carefully brought TK over to the bed.

In all honesty, Kari still believed the entire reason TK was feeling sick was her own fault. She had been the one who brought out the chicken in the first place. And now, she was left with TK feeling sick, and her having no other choice but to dose him with medicine and bring him somewhere where he could sleep off the effects of the food.

TK sighed happily as he eased himself into the bed. "Thanks, Kari," he replied, "Tai won't mind, right?"

Kari shook her head. "No, especially if he's not here. I actually think he would mind if I stuck you in _my_ bed, so his is a better choice."

TK laughed, before settling himself in, pulling the covers up to his chin. Then he carefully took off his hat and placed it on the floor. "Well, thanks for everything Kari," he smiled. "Good night."

Kari responded by smiling back, and leaning down to embrace the boy. "Good night," she answered, gently holding TK for a brief moment, letting his returning embrace fill her with warmth. Then she let go slowly, as she watched TK close his eyes.

She carefully walked towards the doorway, turning the lights out as she did. But then, she blinked, as she saw something in the corner of the room she hadn't noticed when she had come in earlier.

A small light was blinking.

Kari recognized it as the light of a D-terminal when it had mail. Wondering if something had happened, she decided against checking Tai's D-terminal and seeing if hers had the same blink.

After leaving the room and quietly closing the door, she sped into her own room to see if her D-terminal was also blinking. Ignoring both Gatomon and Patamon sleeping together atop a cushioned chair, she reached her desk and found her own D-terminal. _I've been ignoring this all day, haven't I?_ she thought as she quickly opened it at the sight of the same blinking light.

She quickly saw all of the emails.

_Oh no... Sora's in the Digiworld... and I need to answer Izzy's email!_

Without a thought, Kari began replying.

* * *

_From: _Kamiya, Hikari 

_To:_ Takenouchi, Sora

_Body:_ Hi Sora, I'm so sorry, I just got your email. I'm sorry, but the only computer we have access to is broken, so it's not much of a help.

I hope there's a way to help your situation! - Kari

* * *

_From:_ Kamiya, Hikari 

_To:_ Izumi, Koushiro

_Body:_ Sorry, I just got your email. As far as I know, besides what you've emailed out, Tai and Matt are in a nearby grocery store. Strange, but true. TK and I are in my apartment, along with our digimon. Let me know how the situation goes for everyone! - Kari

* * *

With that done, Kari sighed and shut her D-terminal. Sparing another glance at the digimon, she carefully found a book and decided to read. After all, with everyone else in the apartment asleep, especially at such an early time in the evening, she didn't have much else to do. 

Sighing, she decided she would read, and then check on everyone before she went to bed. Truth be told, she did feel somewhat like a mother at the time, but she felt as though it was her responsibility to watch over everyone, especially since it was her house they were in.

With that, she hopped up onto her bed, opened up her book, and began to read.

* * *

The laptop beeped with the new message, but Izzy never noticed. Ever since signing off from his conversation with Joe, he had been sleeping in a corner of the room using his bag as a pillow and his jacket as a blanket. He was certainly too tired out from his sugar high to notice how uncomfortable actually he was, but he would certainly know the next morning...

* * *

"All right then, so let's play a game!" 

Sora blinked at Gomamon, who was hopping in the air on all his fins with a wide grin on his face.

Earlier, the other five of the Digidestined digimon had heard that Sora was stuck in the Digiworld, and so they had come up during dinner to spend the time with Sora and Biyomon. Now, to pass the time, they were coming up with ideas of things to do. After all, the Digiworld was no longer in jeopardy, and the group wasn't being attacked, so there was not much else to do at the time. So now, they were relaxing before a campfire by the lake Sora had been fishing at earlier.

"What kind of game?" Sora asked, wondering what could come of Gomamon's idea.

Gomamon grinned wider. "We're each going to take turns pretending we're someone, and everyone else has to guess who we are!"

"A lot like charades?"

The other digimon glanced at Sora. "Charades is a human game, right?" Agumon asked curiously.

Sora nodded. "Yeah, it's like what you're saying we should play, only you can't talk or write anything. There's lots of different ways to play it."

Palmon shrugged. "I'm fine with whatever you want to play."

"But impersonating others sounds like a very fun idea," Tentomon commented, buzzing his wings in reply.

"But let us talk, please?" Biyomon hopped back up to Sora, with pleading eyes.

Sora could only smile and nod. She was surprised by how much the digimon were including her in this, and she was really quite interested in what they normally did when the humans weren't around.

"All right then, I'm first!" Gomamon shouted, happily jumping up in front of everyone. With his back to the campfire, he suddenly began meticulously balancing himself on his back fins, while flapping his two front fins in the air vigorously. Although it seemed as though he was doing it simply to try and balance, he had another reason for his strange actions.

Still flapping his fins up in the air, he began bounding around. The other digimon, plus Sora had already started laughing slightly at Gomamon's actions, and watching him hop around on two fins while flapping the other two was an extremely funny sight to behold.

Then Gomamon said it. "Meteor Wing!" He folded his fins in front of him and made the same attacking gesture Birdramon always did (although at the very end of it, he fell over backwards).

Sora was suddenly very unsure if she should laugh or not.

Biyomon's eyes narrowed as she glared at Gomamon. "That's not funny, Gomamon!"

Gomamon got up from where he had fallen. "Yes it is, it's funny because I'm the one who's looking like an idiot!"

Biyomon only continued to glare. "Are you saying that I'm an idiot?"

"No! I'm saying I just look like one because I can't fly, I swim! So, I just look funny if I try to fly!"

Sora watched as Biyomon calmly walked up and ungracefully shoved Gomamon away. "Well in that case, I'll just return the favor."

With that, Biyomon fell forward onto her face, spreading out her wings as though they were flippers. Then she began flopping around on the ground, as though she was trying to swim.

At this, everyone did laugh. Sora found that she couldn't help but giggle at how ungraceful Biyomon was acting, and how amusing the entire spectacle was. She watched, smiling as Biyomon then twisted her head around, grunting out the words "Harpoon Torpedo!"

Gomamon was actually quite amused. He grinned widely. "See? This was a fun idea!"

"My turn then," Gabumon stated, walking up to the front and glancing around. Then he stood himself up as straight as he could, before letting out some rather impressive kicks and punches (especially considering his body structure at the moment).

Agumon blinked. "That looks familiar, but I can't place it."

"Maybe it's one of those martial arts stars, like Jet Li?" Sora commented, without any real enthusiasm. She actually had no idea.

Palmon shrugged. "Beats me! Mimi never liked watched major action films... except maybe Lord of the Rings... and they don't do kicks like these in that."

Tentomon watched Gabumon, his wings buzzing in excitement. Then the insect digimon blinked, as he seemed to gain a revelation. He snapped his pincers together in a slightly irritated manner. "Hey, I know who you are! That's not fair!"

"Who is he?" Biyomon asked, having returned to Sora's side earlier when Gabumon began his routine.

Tentomon buzzed his wings, this time with more zeal to it, resulting in an extra-fast buzzing noise. "He's Weregarurumon!"

The other digimon (minus Tentomon and Gabumon) immediately shouted indignantly, "That's not fair! You're already you!"

"See what I mean?" Tentomon muttered.

Gabumon shrugged as he stopped kicking. "I thought it was a good idea."

With that, Sora decided to stand up and take a shot at this game. "Let me try something," she said, as she came up in front. As Gabumon left to sit amongst the other digimon (albeit somewhat annoyed digimon), she glanced among them, somewhat unsure of whom she should impersonate.

Finally, out of ideas, she ran off to the side and grabbed her D-terminal (which she noticed, was blinking). Under the pretext of acting, she quickly checked it, eyes widening when she saw the message was from Kari. Still, she was playing a game, so...

Sora pretended to type on her D-terminal, concentrating. The she put on a face of frustration. "Urgh, this isn't working! Why did we have to come here to Siberia?"

The other digimon blinked, slightly confused. They couldn't quite tell whom Sora was supposed to be yet... although Biyomon had an idea.

Sora finally threw her arms up into the air. "Ugh, no connection, no communication... and all this talk about peruski and borsch is making me hungry! I can't even speak Russian!"

Biyomon finally realized it. "You're Yolei!"

Sora smiled and nodded, letting her arms drop to her sides. "Yeah, although I don't my impersonation worked very well..."

Palmon blinked, looking confused. "Yeah, the computer references made you sound a bit like Izzy."

"There isn't a problem with that," Tentomon retorted.

Sora shrugged as she returned to her spot, holding the D-terminal. _Oh well. I never could act._

_This is actually a lot more interesting than being trapped in the flower shop though._

_

* * *

_

Rushing in her usual mid-morning routine, Mimi quickly blow-dried her hair while attempting to apply some makeup at the same time. "This is not my day," she groaned, glaring at her alarm clock that had suddenly refused to go off that morning. This of course, resulted in her waking up later than usual.

Finally deciding she would finish styling her hair and doing makeup on the subway, she stuffed all her supplies into a bag, and along with her school backpack, she scampered out the door.

She never noticed that her computer was beeping.

* * *

"SPIT!" 

"...ow..."

Tai gingerly poked his reddened hand. "Matt, you've really got to stop slapping so hard..."

Matt paused in his shuffling, placing his hand up to his chin in thought. "I guess I could always try feinting to the other pile..." At Tai's glare, Matt shrugged. "Okay, never mind then."

After Tai had finished rubbing his hand, he also went back to shuffling. He'd lately taken to just slapping whatever pile happened to be on the right, which was usually the smaller pile, but lately, it had started to be the larger pile. Because of that, the Spit game had only continued... and continued...

With a sigh, he finished shuffling and lay out the cards before him. Matt, who had already done so earlier, grinned as he lay one hand on his pile. "Ready?"

Tai nodded, as he also placed one hand on his own pile. "Ready."

Together, they counted.

"1... 2... 3..."

DING... DING... DING!

Both boys paused, and stared up at the intercom. Tai couldn't help but notice that Matt had visibly winced when the intercom sounded. "Still flat?"

Matt nodded with a resigned look on his face. "Yes. Still an A Major tonic chord, still slightly flat."

Tai could only sigh with relief. This was one of the times he was glad he didn't have perfect pitch.

"_Attention shoppers, as it is now late at night, we will soon be turning off the lights. There are emergency blankets and flashlights at the back of the store. We hope you have a good night."_

Matt grimaced. "Well, there goes our game..."

Tai thought about the announcement for a moment. Then he shook his head, grinning. "No, we can still play. Wait here a sec."

With that, Tai burst off towards the back of the store, where a few of the other customers were taking blankets and flashlights. He quickly grabbed a couple blankets and flashlights, and returned to the snack food aisle where Matt was waiting patiently. He then waved both flashlights in Matt's face.

Matt grinned as he grabbed one. "Great idea, Tai."

With that, he turned on the flashlight, setting in down on the tile floor where it illuminated their game. Then he also took a blanket from Tai, and settled down on his stomach on the floor.

Tai wrapped himself in his own blanket before joining Matt. He grinned widely. "Now, where were we..."

Matt nodded. "Ready whenever you are."

They each placed a hand on their respective piles.

"One... two... three... GO!"

There was only the sound of cards being flipped and placed over the floor.

"SPIT!"

"YOW!"

Matt winced. "Sorry Tai!"

Tai rubbed his hand again. "You can buy me a pack of frozen vegetables to make up for it."

Matt blinked. "Frozen vegetables?" Then he understood. "Ah, I see. For your hand, in place of an ice pack."

"Yeah."

Matt sighed. "Tomorrow."

The lights went out.

The two glanced at each other, and shrugged. Then, with the flashlight illuminating the floor, they continued to play.

* * *

Joe calmly practiced his English as he read through all the sites on He managed to understand the concepts behind many of the site summaries, and it certainly gave him something to do. 

In all aspects, he was bored. Which was why he was visiting in the first place. He'd heard about it from Mimi one time, who must have been exceptionally bored when she first stumbled onto it.

In all honesty, he thought he should be doing something more constructive than playing around on a website for bored people. After all, he had come to the library to study, and here he was, stuck in the library. Only, for once in his life, he did not really want to do anything relating to schoolwork or the high school entrance exams.

Knowing Joe, this was actually quite funny.

With a sigh, he clicked on a random link and began to pop virtual bubbles on the virtual bubble wrap website. Yes, he was most definitely bored.

"Hey."

Joe jumped, and stopped playing with the virtual bubble wrap. He looked over to his right, where one of the gamers was eying him with an apologetic look on his face. Inwardly, he was worried that maybe the person had managed to figure out what Joe had done with the computer, but the expression on the gamer's face denied that idea. Blinking, Joe answered, "Yes?"

The other boy sighed. "Um... well, I noticed that you have food, and..." he took a determined breath here, and continued. "I don't have any money, so I can't buy food from the vending machines in the outer hallway, and I haven't eaten all day since this morning, and so can I have a granola bar?"

Joe blinked again. "Sure, I have plenty," he replied, reaching into his bag with one hand and giving the bar to the boy.

The boy sighed in relief. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!" he bowed many times to Joe before hopping away, unwrapping the granola bar as he went.

Joe only gazed serenely as he watched the gamer run off to eat his food. He glanced around the room, noting that now, everyone seemed to have wrappers and cans on the desks where they were eating. Even the librarian, he noticed, seemed to have given up on the 'no eating or drinking' rule in the library and was even joining in with a can of hot coffee (from the vending machine).

Shrugging, Joe grabbed out his water bottle and also took a drink. He was tired, bored, and dearly wanted to go home. Of course, as he was stuck in the library, he had not much of a choice except to stay where he was.

However, he guessed that due to the horrible ice storm problem, he would be unable to go to school.

Joe took the moment to contemplate the idea of no school as he put his water bottle back into his bag. He would be able to study more (although the idea did not excite him). He would be able to research, do extra schoolwork for the next few upcoming weeks, or even just read. But the one thing that stuck in his mind from the thought of no school was something that most took for granted, but he reveled in.

Sleep.

He grinned at this. He considered six hours of sleep a large amount. He was aware that this said something about how much sleep he usually got, and how utterly insane he could be at times due to sleep deprivation.

Joe checked his watch, wincing when he saw the time. It was late, and as his mental state suggested, he really needed to sleep. Quietly, he exited the internet program and shut down the computer. Then, he decided that he had to find some place to sleep.

He glanced around the room at the shelves of books, the tables, and chairs. The first thing he noticed was that many of the chairs were relatively plain ones with armrests, and they had cushions on them. _Well, that's a start. It's not like I have much of a choice, anyway._

He stood from his own cushioned chair, and pulled another one towards him. Then he positioned the two chairs so they were facing each other, and he pushed them together so it created a small, impromptu bed with the cushions as a mattress, chair backs as bedsteads, and the armrests as something more similar to a guardrail.

With that, he carefully kicked off his shoes, and got into the 'bed', not caring that others were looking at him with either strange glances or intrigued grins. Some of the smaller people began emulating him and making their own chair 'beds'.

Grabbing his coat, Joe curled himself up as small as he could so he could fit into the space. It was a tight fit, due to his size, but he was too tired to care. He covered himself with his jacket, and found himself drifting off to sleep immediately.

* * *

Cody glanced around the area for any sign of Davis, Yolei or Ken. He groaned for what he thought had to be the millionth time. "Where are they?" he finally yelled in exasperation. 

It had been quite some time since the three elder Digidestined of the foursome had left.

Demiveemon shrugged as he tapped Minomon's head with a pencil. "Beats me! Maybe they're still playing in that store?"

"It makes sense," Minomon agreed, returning the tap with a sight counter from the side with his own pencil. "After all, Ken can become very addicted to video games."

Cody winced, remembering when Ken, as the Digimon Emperor and thus under the influence of the Dark Spore, had thought that the Digiworld was part of some game. Then he thought about Davis and Yolei. He remembered Yolei being obsessed about something called Final Fantasy IX when she was younger ("Vivi is soooooo cute!" Yolei would squeal before going off on a tangent about something else called black mages), so he knew she could also become addicted to video games. He was unsure about Davis, but Cody could guess just how much the older boy liked them just from his attitude earlier.

Cody sighed. Maybe it was just better to go off to the store and fetch the three older children himself. It was one of the times when he felt he was in charge of watching over the others, despite the fact that he was the youngest in the group.

With that, Cody stood from where he had sat on the bench, motioning to the digimon. "I'm going to go see what happened to them," he said, "If I'm not back in five minutes, you can come to the store too."

Upamon nodded. "Okay! In the meantime, we'll be practicing kendo!" He deftly dodged a pencil being wielded by Poromon, who let out a loud kiai that caught the attention of a few others in the room.

Cody silently thanked the large group that was still singing (they had moved on from 'Kumbaya' to 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight') for being loud enough to act as a larger distraction than the shout of a supposed stuffed animal. With that, he quietly moved away from the digimon, hoping they would not attract too much attention.

He easily found his way to the store without conflict, quickly dodging in to see if he could catch any glimpse of Davis, Yolei, or Ken. He could see rows and rows of TV screens, along with sounds of video game violence coming from many of them. He glanced down the rows, looking for the glare of light reflecting off of Davis' goggles, or a flash of Yolei's purple hair, or even Ken's scarf.

Fortunately for Cody, the noise he heard from the corner, courtesy of Yolei, made the task of finding the group of older children much easier.

He quickly ran up a row to the corner of the store, where Yolei was on her feet and cheering loudly while two characters onscreen battled to the death. Ken and Davis, seated at on the floor, were at the controls, focused and sweating, as they gritted their teeth in frustration at the challenge the other was giving them.

"I'm not giving up, Ken!" Davis suddenly shouted, as his onscreen character jumped forward into the air with a large axe.

The other character deftly dodged the other by running underneath, before recovering and making a spectacular throw with his cudgel, causing the axe man to lose over half of his life bar. Davis glared at Ken, who only shrugged apologetically and made his character start up another spectacular throw.

Cody stared for a few moments, then deftly poked Yolei in the back.

Yolei turned around sharply, almost knocking Cody over. "Oh, hi Cody! Come to join us?" she asked brightly with a wide grin of excitement on her face.

Cody glanced at the two boys who were busily mashing buttons, particularly Davis who looked desperate, and Ken who seemed smug. It made sense too, as Davis was losing. "I just came to see what was keeping you so interested," he answered, watching as Ken's character let out a devastating blow, and Davis' character dropped to the ground. "So you all enjoy watching video game people fight?"

"The fighting can look pretty," Yolei stated defensively.

Cody sighed. "I take kendo," he returned, "Do you think that's pretty?"

"Yes, but this looks pretty too. Especially because Ken always picks the cool martial arts characters."

Cody sweatdropped. _Does this have to do with a Ken/Yolei duo?_

Davis was busily trying to find another character to use, while Ken sat smiling as he waited. Cody suddenly thought that if Davis had lost the last one, and Yolei was rooting for Ken, then Davis had no one to back him. Besides, the digimon would come to the store in a few minutes anyway if Cody didn't come back so...

"All right, Davis, I'm rooting for you," Cody said.

All three of the older children stared at him in surprise for a moment. Then Davis shrugged and grinned. "Cool, more backup for me!"

Yolei blinked. "You're doing this just to spite me, aren't you?"

Cody smiled back in a sudden sense of almost uncharacteristic mischievousness. Ken shook his head, though he couldn't hide another smile of curiosity. "This should be interesting then."

Inwardly though, Cody wondered what sort of trouble he was getting himself into.

* * *

Having finished reading her book, Kari let herself fall backwards to lie atop her bed. She took another glance at the clock, seeing how late it was, and quietly decided she should sleep. She carefully pulled her pajamas out of her dresser, and while changing, began to reflect to herself. 

Over the day, so far, she had succeeded in having a friend over, inadvertently getting him trapped in her apartment, and then nearly killing him by the usage of radioactive chicken (as all four of them had dubbed it). Clearly, a very eventful day, in which Kari felt somewhat guilty about things that others would have insisted, was not her fault. It was the chicken that really made Kari feel concerned.

In a comfy pair of light pink pajamas, she carefully tiptoed out of her room to turn off all the lights. She winced when she glanced at the pot of chicken (bubbling, perhaps), and decidedly ignored it. She kept the heater going, because she knew how cold it had to be outside and how everyone inside would freeze if she turned it off, and continued to wander around, flicking light switches off.

Her task complete, she returned towards the door of her room, but paused at the door to Tai's room first. She gently placed her hand on the door handle, almost unsure whether she really wanted to check on TK or not, but her empathy overcame her. She carefully turned the handle, and poked her head inside.

TK seemed to be sleeping peacefully in the bed, with the covers pulled up over his chin. He had the rest of the blankets tucked around him, and looked comfortable and calm in his slumber. Kari had to admit, she thought he looked incredibly cute sleeping the way he was.

Resisting a sudden surprising urge to touch his cheek, she quickly exited out of the room, making sure to carefully close the door behind her. Somehow, she was afraid that TK might be a little uncomfortable if he woke up while Kari was there next to him.

She crept back into her room and making sure the lights were off, climbed into bed. She lay there for a while, reflecting over everything. She was worried about everyone, such as Tai and Matt in the grocery store, Izzy at school, Yolei, Davis, Ken, and Cody at the mall, Sora in the Digiworld... so far, everyone was trapped places and being forced to deal with the situations. She felt unsure about how the problems revolving around the ice storm would be resolved, and could only hope for the best (and hope that no one turned insane by the events either).

Ignoring a very quiet "Mimble-wimble" from the sleeping Gatomon, Kari finally closed her eyes and let her troubled mind rest.

* * *

Lying on her back on a soft field of grass, Sora took the moment to stare up at the starry sky. It was something she never had a chance to do, since at home the city lights blocked out the gentle twinkles of the sky, and whenever she stayed overnight in the Digiworld, she had been more worried about the others with her and various digimon attacks than the constellations of the sky. 

She spared a glance around her. The digimon were sleeping, not necessarily tired but just resting after a day of entertainment with a good friend. Sora shrugged to herself, stifling a yawn. The warm breeze that blew past her gave a feeling of nostalgia, from having once spent months in the Digiworld. It was a beautiful night, and she was happy to enjoy it.

She was still worried about the fact that at home, there was nothing she could do to help anyone. Her mother was in a flower shop, her friends were trapped in various places, and she herself had no passage home. Fortunately, the world was in a state of peace, so she felt able to enjoy herself somewhat.

Idly picking a blade of grass, Sora twirled it between her fingers in her left hand while connecting the stars with her right. She smiled when she caught the bare image of a heart. _Just like my old crest._

She could only hope that everything would turn out all right.

* * *

Cody yawned as he watched Yolei and Ken battle it out onscreen. Ken still had his cudgel wielding character, and Yolei had chosen some Celtic looking girl with a sword and shield. He had to admit, it was amusing watching the expressions on the two Digidestined's faces as they played against each other. 

"They're really into this, aren't they Cody?" Upamon asked as he bounced up and down next to his partner, also watching the screen.

Cody nodded as he rubbed his eyes. All the digimon had come into the store earlier, bouncing surreptitiously along the aisles until they found the four children. Now, they mostly watched in mild interest (in the case of Demiveemon and Minomon, a lot of interest) as Davis rooted for Ken and Yolei, while Yolei kept yelling at Davis for breaking her concentration. As for Ken, he had just lost a couple of matches, and Cody had a vague feeling that Ken had done it on purpose. Cody could only wonder as to why.

In the meantime, he was becoming very sleepy. He blithely tried to ignore the sounds of video game violence as well as verbal sparring ("Davis, can't you shut up for a minute!"), and mentally debated on whether he should leave and try to sleep, or continue watching. He found the idea of sleeping more attractive than staying up and watching more feuds between the three elder Digidestined.

But he was so tired, he didn't really want to move either, from his spot sitting on the floor behind Yolei. With another yawn, Cody let himself fall over onto his side, resting his head on his hands while still watching out of the corner of his eye. For a while, he stared blankly as Yolei beat Ken again ("Whoa Ken, what's up man? You beat me but you can't beat Yolei?"), and watched as there was a slight argument between Yolei and Davis, while Ken looked on in amusement. Cody however, could swear that Ken was looking a lot more at Yolei than Davis.

Then again, he was tired and half asleep, so maybe he was just dreaming.

Slowly, he found it harder to keep his eyes open, and he let his eyelids droop down. _No... I should stay up and make sure those three stay sane... _He forcefully lifted himself up, staring blearily at everyone.

Upamon glanced at him in concern. "Cody, you look really tired," the small digimon commented.

Cody nodded. "I am. It's been a long day. We should probably all go to bed."

"And where would that be?" Demiveemon popped up next to Cody, asking with a genuinely curious look. Cody guessed that would have been Davis' comment had Davis not been busy playing his video games.

"Um..." Cody actually had no idea.

Ken turned noticed Cody's state as Yolei began to search through and choose another character for the game. He smiled gently. Ken, unlike Cody, was wide awake and full of adrenaline. "Sorry we're so absorbed in this right now. If you want Cody, you can go to sleep, and we'll join you once we're done. We'll be fine, it's not like we're going to be attacked by rampaging Tuskmon or something like that."

Cody nodded to Ken thankfully. "Thanks."

However, Cody was so tired that he could not move from his spot. In the end, he simply fell over and began sleeping.

Yolei turned and blinked at Cody, then sighed and took off her jacket. She covered the smaller boy in it, smiling for the tiredness of her friend, watching slightly while the four digimon also began to droop in sleepiness and join Cody in slumber. Ken unwound his scarf and folding it, carefully slid it under Cody's head. Finally, Davis took off his own jacket and wrapped all the digimon in it.

The three children smiled at each other serenely as they watched their slumbering friends for moment.

And then it was back to war.

"Aha! Ken is going to beat you bad, Yolei!"

"Well he hasn't yet!"

"You're gonna' lose!"

"Shut up, Davis!"

At this, stuck in the middle, Ken finally just sighed and handed Davis the controller. "How about this, the two of you can battle and resolve everything."

Davis blinked, then grinning deviously, accepted the controller. "All right then, Yolei, you're going down!"

"As if!"

Ken could only hope that the two of them didn't wake up Cody. Either that, or he could try to find another game that would not focus on skills at a controller, one that would keep Yolei and Davis working together and hopefully not bickering...

* * *

"SPIT!" 

"OW!"

"SHUT UP!"

Tai and Matt both paused at the angry voice of the newcomer, and turned towards the end of the aisle, Tai shining the flashlight in the general direction.

One of the customers from earlier had poked his head around the side of the aisle. He glared at the two erring boys and looked very irritated. "Some of us here are trying to sleep! And put that thing down, bush head, you're blinding me." With that, he retreated, stomping as he went, ignoring the slightly indignant remark from Tai regarding the 'bush head'.

Then Tai and Matt both looked at each other. With a shrug, Tai shone the flashlight on his very red and sore hand. He could swear that it was a little bigger than he normally remembered it.

"I think my hand has swollen up."

Matt sighed, and handed Tai another pack of frozen peas. He'd gotten them some time earlier when Tai had begun gingerly poking his own hand. "Here you go."

Tai graciously took the pack and wrapped his hand in it. "Thanks. Maybe we should get some sleep. It is one in the morning," he answered, referring to the time shown on his Digivice.

Matt shrugged. "And I was hoping we could pull an all-nighter. Well, you have a point. Good night."

With that, Matt grabbed the small bag of rice he'd started using as a pillow, and lay his head on it. Tai switched off the flashlight, and putting it off to the side where he could easily snatch it in an emergency, retrieved his own bag of rice pillow. He grimaced when he felt how firm it was. "Heh, some pillow fight this would make."

"Ouch," was Matt's answer.

There was silence for a few moments, as the two stared into the darkness of the room. Then Tai spoke.

"Kind of like old times in the Digiworld, huh?"

"Only this is a grocery store."

"We always could try 'fishing' in those tanks."

Matt finally just sighed as he tried to ignore the cold feeling of the tile floor.

"I preferred the Digiworld. You know Tai, I think we're in for a few long days, or however long this ice problem lasts."

And Tai came back with an answer that summed up what both boys were thinking at that very moment.

"Yeah. But I have a question to ask: WHY THE HECK A GROCERY STORE?"

* * *

_Comment: _Poor Tai. And Matt. And TK. Unfortunately, this is only the first night... who knows what else could happen? Maybe such things like jumping out windows? (maybe this chapter, maybe not...) Will anyone be freed from their predicaments? Will Izzy ever stay sane? 

I guess we just have to wait to find out!


End file.
